sport world

LAGUNA HILLS >> Mayfair kept it close for as long as it could against Santa Margarita on Thursday night at Laguna Hills High. Eventually, the Eagles took over in the trenches and ran away for a 49-3 nonleague victory. Santa Margarita (4-0) rushed for 328 yards and six touchdowns as a team. The Eagles are ranked No. 9 in CIF Southe Section Division 1, and No. 13 in Califoia according to M...

LOS ANGELES — A key step in the selection of an Olympic host city is the Inteational Olympic Committee evaluation commission’s tour of candidate cities. These visits give IOC officials the chance to tour proposed venues and Olympic Village sites, ride subway lines and gauge the interest of the community in hosting the Games and then report back to the rest of the IOC’s 94 members prior to the ho...

LOS ANGELES >> One didn’t ea a penalty and one did, but two controversial incidents of targeting between UCLA and Hawaii last Saturday might leave the Bruins without two of their starting linebackers for this week’s game against Memphis. Senior Key Young, who was forced out of last Saturday’s game after getting leveled on a blindside block, will go through the concussion protocol this we...

For the first time since 2006, the “Milk Bucket” is headed back to Mayfair as the Monsoons (3-0) beat Lakewood (0-3), 21-18, at Ron Yary Stadium. “This is the biggest win in 30 years,” Mayfair coach Derek Bedell told the team. “We have a lot of things to work on but we are going to celebrate first.” It was a back-and-forth game in the first half as both teams had multiple miscues and penalties, wi...

PITTSBURGH >> The media gets blamed for everything these days. For most of the season, Dodgers third baseman Justin Tuer has led the National League in batting average. Then people started asking him about it. Tuer is presumably only joking when he claims a causal effect between answering reporters’ questions about a batting title and losing points off his average. But he is not joking w...

Even before his first regular-season game, Rams Coach Sean McVay showed he won’t be afraid to delegate responsibilities. McVay, formerly the offensive coordinator in Washington, aounced shortly after his hire in January that he would call plays for the Rams, but McVay said Sunday that his offensive coordinator, Matt LaFleur, called plays during the second half of Saturday’s preseason victory over Oakland. Most notably, LaFleur, formerly the quarterbacks coach in Atlanta, called plays when the Rams drove for the game-wiing touchdown in the final minutes against the Raiders. “He made some g...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. >> Most meaningful of all the text messages Hideki Matsuyama received last week was the one from Jason Day congratulating the Japanese star for his 61 in the final round at Firestone to win his second World Golf Championship. It read: “Congrats, mate. Unreal playing. See you ne...

ANAHEIM >> The first two games after the much-anticipated retu of Mike Trout have not exactly gone as the Angels had hoped. Other than two homers by slumping Luis Valbuena, little went right for the Angels in a 6-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday night, their second straight loss with...

Jaret Anderson-Dolan grew up on skates, which doesn’t make him all that different from most of Canada’s 35 million citizens. But he scored a hat trick in his first game as a 15-year-old with the junior-level Spokane (Wash.) Chiefs of the Weste Hockey League, a sign he was extraordinary. Anderson-D...

CLOVIS >> It was an excellent Friday of qualifying for Long Beach area athletes at the CIF State Track & Field championships at Buchanan High. Of the 23 entries for Friday’s prelims, just four failed to advance to Saturday’s finals. Long Beach Poly leads the way with six athletes who will ...

LONG BEACH >> Everything came together for the Lakewood High baseball team to exorcise a demon and grab a share of the Moore League lead on Friday at Blair Field. The Lancers broke out offensively while riding a complete-game performance from ace Bryan Sandoval to beat Millikan 4-1, their first Moore League victory over the Rams since May 1, 2013. They were outscored by the Rams 27-7 over th...

SALINAS >> Six tus from the end of the Pirelli World Challenge Championships Grand Prix at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on Sunday, Patrick Long of Manhattan Beach went off the pavement in a battle with Johy O’Coell for the checkered flag. Soon after the finish, PWC officials deemed O’Coell for an on-track infraction and moved him from first to fifth. As a result, Alvaro Parente of Porto,Portugal was moved into first and secured the driver’s championship in a battle with Long. O’Coell, a four-time GT champion from Flowery Branch, Georgia, was pushing his Cadillac to his fourth win of the season. Long was second before going off the pavement in Tu 5 but dropped back to fifth. During the 27...

PASADENA >> Prior to Saturday night, one could argue UCLA’s losses had been more convincing than its wins this season. A pair of defeats to teams currently in the top 10 weren’t doing much for the Bruins’ hopes to win a championship of some sort. Saturday night’s 45-24 victory over Arizona evened the Bruins’ record in the Pac-12 and gave UCLA a win in the first of its five games against the division opponents standing between it and the conference championship game. The UCLA offense exploded for 277 yards and 31 points in the second half. Quarterback Josh Rosen finished 20 of 37 passing for a season-high 350 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. “To know that we moderately...

SAN FRANCISCO >> When an animal-rights activist ran on the field and offered Angel Pagan a flower, the Giants left fielder body-slammed him to the ground. That was not the rudest treatment given to a visitor at AT&T Park on Friday night. The Dodgers wanted to see if career starter Brandon McCarthy might possibly be an option to pitch out of the bullpen during the postseason. Now, they know. McCarthy followed starter Rich Hill to the mound in the sixth iing with the Dodgers having just taken a one-run lead. It was McCarthy’s first relief appearance since April 25, 2007 with the Texas Rangers. He faced six batters, didn’t retire any of them and the Giants scored seven times in the ii...

Name: Ally Busch School: Lakewood Year; Senior Sport: Volleyball Noteworthy: It’s rare that a libero wins an award or gets a headline, but Lakewood’s Ally Busch eaed that right last week in helping lead her team to a four-set win over Poly, giving the Lancers an inside track on a league title. Busch had 13 digs and four aces and controlled the match from the back line, serving a 4-0 run in the second set when Lakewood trailed 24-22. She ended the set with an ace. In the third set, the score was tied 8-8 before Busch served a 7-0 run that included back-to-back aces. What is SCPL: “Standout athletes, teams, coaches and inspirational performers this high school season will be honored in an end...

“We play when we want to play,” said Lancers coach Mike Wadley, whose team let its foot off the gas pedal in the third set. The Lancers were without a starting back row player and didn’t always have crisp passing. But front row players Destynie Viliamu and Julia Crawford were solid wire-to-wire. Viliamu had 14 kills, five aces and two blocks and Crawford had 12 kills and three blocks. “We could have done better, but it was great to start with a win,” Viliamu said. NORWALK 3, BELLFLOWER 0 >> The Lancers (3-4) opened Suburban League play with a sweep victory at home. — Mike Guardabascio Boys water polo NEWPORT HARBOR 10, WILSON 7 >> Unforced errors and some bad luck kept the Bruin...

LAKEWOOD >> The aual Molten Classic girls volleyball touament came to a wild end Monday night as Huntington Beach claimed the title after surviving a seesaw battle with the host Lancers and picking up a 25-23, 15-25, 11-25, 26-24, 15-9 victory at Lakewood High. The Oilers held off a Lakewood rally in the opening frame to set the tone, but the Lancers dominated the next two, rattling off a 10-0 spurt after falling behind 6-3 and eventually scoring 22 of the final 27 points in the third. For most of the fourth set it seemed as if the momentum would stay on the home team’s side after the Lancers (5-1) dished out another 7-0 run and held leads of 19-12, 20-13 and 21-14, respectively. Lakew...

“Ghostbusters” might have been the 1980s movie franchise that was revived this summer in theaters, but on the football field at Lakewood High School, it’s been “Back to the Future” for the last month. That’s because the Lancers new football coach — their fourth in the last six years — is also their old football coach. Mike Christensen retus to the program after a decade away, as an on-campus physical education teacher and the head coach. Christensen coached Lakewood from 1998-2005. The team went 35-11 with runs in the CIF Southe Section playoffs every year. Compare that to the last three seasons when Lakewood was 15-17 and without a playoff win since 2010. “We’re far behind,” said Christens...

ANAHEIM >> More than once this season, Angels catcher Geovany Soto told teammate Carlos Perez to relax. And more than once, the 25-year-old Perez would grip the bat tightly, resisting the advice of his 33-year-old mentor. Perez ultimately leaed his lesson the hard way. By the All-Star break, he had nearly as many strikeouts (35) as hits (38). His .204 batting average left the Angels little choice but to send him to Triple-A Salt Lake to clear his mind. It worked. As soon as he arrived in Salt Lake, Perez said, “I just felt like you don’t have to have that kind of pressure. Just play. When I came back the first time, that’s what I did.” Perez, who was recalled for a second time Wednesd...

RIO DE JANIERO >> The U.S. team made the most of its second chance to qualify for the women’s 4x100-meter relay final, ruing the fastest time of the day in a solo re-run before the night session began. The Americans dropped the baton during the moing preliminaries and appeared to be out of contention. But track officials upheld the U.S. protest because Allyson Felix was jostled by a Brazilian ruer, in the next lane, as she tried to hand the baton to English Gardner on the second exchange. The U.S. finished the race, 10 seconds off the pace. If the team had not finished, it could not have lodged a protest. Because relay finals must be limited to eight teams, the Americans were called b...